


Two O'Clock in the Afternoon

by BabylonsFall



Category: Leverage
Genre: Dancing, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, House Cleaning, Multi, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 12:18:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16681483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabylonsFall/pseuds/BabylonsFall
Summary: It's Eliot's turn to clean the apartment. And, if he's alone, why not dance a little? Not like there's anyone to see.





	Two O'Clock in the Afternoon

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know. It's been a long week. Have 2.5k words of domestic headcanons that cheered me up to think about.
> 
> Hope you like it!

It’s two o’clock in the afternoon.

There’s nothing particularly special about the time. It’s a background detail that Eliot has running in his mind—right alongside the fact that it’s probably about sixty-five degrees outside, the downstairs neighbors left half an hour ago, it’s probably going to rain tonight, he really needs to go grocery shopping but can probably put it off for another day if they eat at the restaurant or order in tomorrow, the washing machine is going to beep in about twenty minutes; it’s a running track record of his day, and the time sort of just slides and shifts around it.

He doesn’t need to really be  _ aware  _ of it until around five, when he needs to start dinner, and then five-thirty, when Hardison and Parker are due to come tumbling back through the door, back from wherever they decided to spend their ‘day of exile’ (Hardison’s words, that Parker happily parroted).

It had been their damn idea, something he was only too happy to remind them of (even if it wasn’t strictly true) as he closed the door on them.

It wasn’t like they needed a chore-list or something so organized for the apartment. They were all functioning adults, most days, and they all knew how to keep a home (vaguely, in some cases, but there was a general idea there). So dishes didn’t pile up, clothes didn’t get too rank, crumbs and food were taken out of the living room as quickly as possible...the basics. But sometimes? 

Sometimes they were gone for weeks. Sometimes, they got home, collapsed for a couple days, only to pack back up and dive into the next job without really stopping. Sometimes, the brewpub and scouting and just living day to day took precedence and keeping the apartment clean wasn’t anyone’s top priority.

And when that happened, straws were drawn and one of them took on the job of making the apartment livable again.

(The first couple of times, they’d tried together, all three or in pairs, and it just...rapidly devolved. In multiple ways. Best to just leave it at that.)

This time, they’d just come back from a two-week long job in London, and though Amy had been amazing and kept the various plants around alive, the rest of the apartment had been...stale, was the best (kindest) word Eliot could come up with.

So, straws, Eliot got the job, and the next morning, Hardison and Parker were kicked out with a promise (threat) to not to be home until five-thirty.

It wasn’t like the apartment was filthy—again, they weren’t slobs. And sure, two of them were still figuring out the ins and outs of staying in one place long enough to actually care about things like dust and vacuuming and keeping a well-stocked cleaning closet and well organized storage and the like. Hardison was the only one of the group that actively had a cleaning routine, drilled into him by Nana as soon as he was old enough to be trusted with cleaning supplies, while Parker and Eliot had to cobble something together through trial and error. It worked though, eventually.

Which led to today, at two o’clock in the afternoon.

The washing machine’s on it’s fourth load, the dryer on it’s third. There’s a mop drying in the tub from when Eliot had gone after the kitchen floors and the hardwood in the living room this morning. Going after the windows and the flat surfaces is next on his list, as soon as he finishes actually picking up the things he’d tossed on the couch and on any available flat surface just to get them off the floor.

Clothes, papers, files, bits of gadgetry and wires, video game and dvd cases, pieces of rope and rigging, his own gym bag that had slowly migrated out and taken over a corner of the living room…

Nothing likely to grow sentience if left alone (no matter what Hardison said about that gym bag), but still. It’s a lot.

And Eliot can only grumble and sigh and pretend he’s trying not to laugh about all of it.

Something that had surprised him, when they’d finally found an apartment for the three of them and actually settled into a space meant for  _ them _ , was that, of the three of them? Hardison was the cleanest.

Okay, wait, there was a caveat there. He was the cleanest  _ at home _ . Out on the job? All bets were off. Soda bottles piling up, papers tossed every which way, a suit jacket thrown across the hotel room, whatever forgery materials he needed now slowly creeping over every flat surface imaginable... Hardison was a disaster zone waiting to happen.

At home though… his stuff managed to stay pretty well corralled to the table he’d claimed for his main monitors and computers, and the side table next to the tv. Maybe some gadgets got strewn about, as he took them around the apartment to fiddle with, only to set them down and forget about them. Occasionally some file for their next possible job would end up on the bathroom counter for the same reason. But his clothes always made it to the hamper, food and soda bottles were left on the desk only as long as it took him to come out of his latest computer binge, stacks of papers and files and gadgetry and sewing had their own little areas that did their best not to encroach on unnecessary space. It wasn’t perfect, but at worst it was controlled chaos.

Parker was...not the worst, because the worst involved things that none of them did, but her presence in the mess of living together was generally easier to see, which Eliot...also hadn’t been expecting. Given the state of her warehouses, he’d kind of expected her to be the least obtrusive of the three of them—things piled away neatly, out of sight, with an almost military precision that had him itching between the shoulder blades.

Instead, the living room looked bare if at least one of her shirts wasn’t tossed haphazardly over the back of the arm chair. If there wasn’t a lock pick set on the coffee table, half out of its case as she got distracted from taking stock. If there wasn’t a rig or some rope hanging off the pot of the poor plant in the corner by the window, from where she dropped it as she walked by (always one that was about to be thrown out, something she was experimenting with but didn’t care too much if it got twisted and tangled). If there wasn’t some creepy knick knack she’d picked up from their latest trip, shoved into a dark corner to best scare the living daylights out of whoever caught sight of it in the early morning light half-way across the room (...it was a hummel figurine this time. He didn’t even remember passing a shop that had them, the entire two weeks they’d been in London).

It had taken him a little while to figure out just what was up with his two partners, but only because the reasons were...deceptively simple. Hardison always talked of a crowded house, of little space and less privacy, but of taking care of what he did have. How Nana may not have been able to give them all everything, but everyone got what they needed, so long as everyone else looked after each other too. So it made sense, that he’d fall back on an ingrained instinct to share space as best he could, and that it would take awhile for that to relax. As for Parker, though she’d never come out and said it, Eliot was pretty damn sure this was the first place that was her’s in the sense of an actual  _ home  _ since she was little.

And he got it. Something like that? You tried to make a mark. Make sure you could be seen in every piece of it, just so people wouldn’t forget it was  _ yours _ .

(Nevermind that he could be accused of doing the exact same thing, with the conspicuous outfitting of the kitchen. With his hair ties on the tables. With his refusal to make the bed most mornings. With his (according to Parker and Hardison) weird habit of leaving coffee mugs out on the coffee table until late afternoon, if they were around for the day.)

And here he is. Getting distracted. Despite the fact that the other two had been kicked out of the apartment to prevent this very damn thing.

Go figure.

Rolling his eyes at himself, he focused back on getting everything put in its proper place so he could finish cleaning properly, humming softly along with the strains of Etta James coming through the speakers by the tv. Hardison had made the playlist for him awhile back—a mix of stuff he’d heard Eliot saying he used to like to listen to, a bit of Hardison’s choices, and a Disney song or two thrown in there for Parker.

Eliot wouldn’t admit to it, but the smell of too-sharp, too-fake citrus, dust floating in the air and the sounds of Elvis in the background was about the biggest bittersweet nostalgia hit someone could drop on him, and it wouldn’t surprise him in the least if it was somewhat intentional.

It didn’t hurt, like he thought it might, the first time he found himself in the too-big apartment alone, trying not to inhale too much dust, and Patti Labelle’s It’s Alright With Me started playing. There had definitely been a moment he’d had to stop, take the moment in. But the memory that came along with it—his mom, dancing around a big old house by herself, paying him no mind as he came in through the back door after practice, singing along horribly offkey with a towel in one hand and some no-name cleaner in another, her startled laugh when he’d joined in, spinning her around the living room—was sweet, the image fading out with the last notes of the song.

Now, he didn’t get too caught up in the memories, though they were definitely still there, so much as lived out his own versions, which he knew would have his mom laughing way too hard if she could see him.

But, he was alone in the apartment, the smell of something someone somewhere decided was close enough to lemon in the air, the music going from Etta James to Elvis to Patti Loveless, and no one could blame him if he sang along, and maybe, just maybe, spun himself around with a laugh.

Actually, fuck it, he was alone, he’d dance all damn day if he wanted to. Which is exactly what he’d been doing, and no one needed to know. There’d definitely been a handful of slides across the hardwood, spins with invisible partners, a sashay he’d never admit to being able to do. It was fun, and relaxing, and the air-guitar at one point was a one-off fluke.

Sure, Eliot would admit to liking to dance—that had already been dragged out of him by Parker and Hardison several months back, and it was several dance classes and too many too bright, too fun, too sweet and happy dates past to take it back. It was another way of moving his body, of figuring out how to interact with the people around him, and required just as much, if not more, focus than a fight, depending on the style, and he revelled in it, when he got the chance. That both Parker and Hardison were very much on board with the whole thing was just an amazing bonus.

But this? This wasn’t something that relied on timing or knowing where he was in relation to someone else. Hell, if he was following the beat half the time he’d be surprised. But it was fun, and goofy, and he hadn’t been this relaxed in days, if not weeks.

And maybe that’s why he didn’t hear the door open—or at least, he heard  _ something _ , because he can’t not, but it didn’t really register as the door, and what that might mean, until he’d spun around to follow the end of Jailhouse Rock, and came face to face with Hardison, who was leaning in the door with a big grin on his face, and Parker, who was peeking around the door frame, looking like she couldn’t decide it she wanted to laugh or snort at him.

So. Two options.

Retain his dignity and go right into a rant about how they were early. (A little late, but he could try. He’s not sure how convincing he’d be, standing there in sweats and a tank top, his hair a fly-away mess that he’s pretty sure his hair tie actively stopped trying to contain an hour ago.)

Or…

He’s not sure what’s playing now—its familiar enough to tell him he’s heard it somewhere, but not enough to give him a name—though from the soft look in Hardison’s eyes and the spark of interest in Parker’s, he’s pretty sure he knows who’s it is.

(Later, he’ll learn it’s Otis Redding’s Loving by the Pound, and all about Nana’s love of his music, and how Hardison definitely picked up on the nostalgia aspect of the playlist, even if it hadn’t been his initial intention, and both Eliot and Parker’ll just have to kiss him.)

It takes two strides to get to the door, and Hardison yelps but goes with the tug without a fight. The yelp turns into a laugh halfway through when he finds himself being spun around, back towards Parker, who catches on fast enough to pull him back towards the open living room with a bright smile. And the dip she manages doesn’t fit the song, but Hardison’s laughing still, and when he’s upright again, he’s quick to grab Eliot, and soon enough, they’re a mess, absolutely no coordination, patching together set steps and making up others on the fly as they keep passing between each other, trying not to knock into the coffee table (or, in one instance, in Parker’s case, just hopping up on it).

There’s no dignified steps, no keeping time to the music. But it’s okay, because they work it out anyway, wherever they can get their feet.

It’s two o’clock in the afternoon. The sun’s shining bright through the windows, sliding gold on the hardwood. The air smells too sharply of citrus after one of the cleaning bottles is knocked to the floor, all muzzy and sticky until a window’s opened to let in some air. And all the three of them can do is laugh and smile and try to kiss each other whenever one’s in reach.

The apartment doesn’t get cleaned that night, but none of them can really find it in themselves to care too much, too busy laughing and dancing, enjoying the sound of home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are always appreciated ^^


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